The Mazes & Monsters movie turned out to be even worse than I remembered it. Though I do kinda dig the way the M&M players gather by candlelight around a more abstract, almost chess-like board. If you want to learn more about this cinematic masterpiece and the retro RPG currently being designed around it, check out this post and subsequent ones over at Blog of Holding.
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It STILL lives!? Aaaaahhhh!
ReplyDeleteActually, I was thinking of making an NPC party up of their characters.
Ciao!
Ha. I've never seen it, though I've been waiting for Netflix to get a copy. Maybe I'll try inter-library loan.
ReplyDeleteAlong the same lines, I was amused to discover that Jack Chick's Dark Dungeons is on the web.
Man, when I was a kid and this aired on TV for the first time (~Christmas '82, I believe), we totally thought it was a celebration of D&D. It was a pop culture event back in the pre-Netflix, proto-cable, big 3 network era; there wasn't much else to choose from so everyone watched it. Afterwards, instead of trying to synopsize the game to friends at school who were unfamiliar with it, I could just say "Did you watch Mazes & Monsters? This is the game that that they were playing." Made life easier for us geeks and gave us some cred for having gotten in on it before it went mainstream. The whole "D&D will make you crazy" message was absolutely lost on us.
ReplyDeleteThere is a book, the movie alone can't embrace the full experience.
ReplyDeleteI love how that cover image makes the movie look like some kind of fantasy flick.
ReplyDeleteThe gorvil was pretty cool though:
http://dungeonskull.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
I tried re-watching it again recently myself, and found it pretty unbearable. But the candles were indeed cool.
ReplyDeleteI have the DVD, watched it. I don't get a "D&D makes you crazy" message from it. The story very clearly shows that while the media will be quick to report on the "weird" hobby he has and speculating on a possible link (this is what would, and does, happen in rel life when kids go nuts, so it makes sense and is not part of an agenda this movie has), his actual problems are not related to the game, but to (spoiler I guess) losing his brother. This is really clear by the end. The several other kids who play the game are not crazy, after all, and remain sane throughout. It's all about the Hanks character's mental problems, which he sort of deals with using the game, not about the game causing his problems.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty bad, but the cool Shrinky-Dink character miniatures and the Gorvil make it all worthwhile for me.
ReplyDelete(Thanks for the shout-out, Dungeoneering Dad!)